It never ceases to amaze me how often it needs to be restated that John McCain can’t lose his integrity, because he never had any, but Daniel Larison makes yet another effort to point this out. So help me, if I could, I would print that out and staple it to the forehead of every journalist in DC if I thought it would do any good.

I agree with Larison and Cole that McCain never had integrity to lose, at least in his life after being a heroic POW (always have to work that one in). I’m not sure how Larison comes to the conclusion that liberals were ever fooled by him. As far as I know, the press corps and the “centrists” from both parties were the hypnotized folks that fell for the charms of the tire swings.

I hope is a lonely and bitter man counting all his losses this winter.

Weekly adventures of two senile octogenarians traveling hither and yon telling stories of daring do to rapturous media types. Each cliff-hanging episode leaves us wondering until next week if any of the dipshit media types will wake up and smell the fucking coffee.

I browsed some of Larison’s other posts. Not the first time I’ve read him, but I kept having to remind myself that he really is a conservative. He’s not a bloodthirsty war/torture fetishist, he’s not willing to throw out the Constitution when it’s convenient for his side, and he sees right through fools like Palin (as any sensible, sentient human being should be able to).

Things didn’t used to be that way; conservatives used to be thoughtful, and the crazies were limited to John Birch Society cranks who were kept at a healthy arm’s distance. Now, of course, they run the show, directly and indirectly.

By the end of the campaign season, McCain will abandon every bit of campaign finance reform and blatantly support corporate donors and the Supreme Court. The justifications will never make sense and the last remaining Beltway journos will send out yet another search party for McCain’s integrity. Bet on it.

Dana Milbank was the bellwether on McCain, and when you’ve lost Dana Milbank, a Village nothingburger named Larison doesn’t count. Milbank’s article was as lame and pathetic as Larison’s is sharp and eviscerating, which is why Milbank is at Kaplan and Larison toils in relative obscurity.

@danimal: He’s really become a shameless flip-flopper. I guess he figures this may well be his last campaign; no need to save up any remaining shreds of credibility or consistency.

Will Arizonans fall for it? I kind of think so, but I also think there is a very real feeling among average voters that it’s time for him to go; the problem is, the choice is between McCain, JD Hayworth, and some Democrat yet to be heard of.

@The Moar You Know: I wasn’t aware of that. Disappointing. I really can’t stand that kind of crap. It sort of begs the question, was Reconstruction really the right way to go about things in the aftermath of the Civil War? After all, the only way we got the peaceful Germany of today was to completely crush the imperialistic Germany which didn’t understand until 1945, that it had lost in 1919.

The thing that struck me with that article was his references to the “liberal” media.

Apparently if the DC media disagrees with a conservative they’re liberal, and there’s no reference to them agreeing with conservatives, whereas from our vantage point when they agree with a conservative they’re conservative.

So basically, both sides look at the DC press and frame it to match their own views.

@r€nato: Here’s what kills me. I’m a Southerner by birth, from a family that has lived in the South since at least the mid-1700s. He’s a fucking Yankee. Where he is getting the idea that Lincoln was a “executive usurper” is absolutely beyond me.

It sort of begs the question, was Reconstruction really the right way to go about things in the aftermath of the Civil War?

It obviously wasn’t, although my life certainly would have been a lot different had another course of action been pursued. Rebuilding the South? That was a no-brainer. Letting the officers and the architects of the rebellion go with no penalty? Stupidest thing that’s probably ever been done in this nation. The North should have completely and thoroughly broken the South so that there could be no doubt of who the victor was, and the kind of penalty I’m talking about would have ended their statuses as individual states forever.

That was what jumped out at me, too. Where does Larison get the idea that liberals were particularly fooled by McCain? Seems that he’s lazily conflating inside the beltway idiots with liberals. John Cole, help us out here. What (among a multitude of things) am I missing (again)?

John McCain is the world’s oldest two-year old. He is still so pissed that Obama beat him that he takes every opportunity to appear on the political talk shows to voice his total disagreement with every Obama administration action. The problem is that there is usually no coherent reason for his many opposing views, other than the obvious one. He’s a huge crybaby whose time in the spotlight is coming to an end.

Here’s, to me, an interesting question about McCain: After he lost to Bush, he petulantly opposed most everything Bush’s administration put forward. After losing to Obama, he took a snarly “I’m against all Obama policy” position. What does he do if he loses to Hayworth? Start voting randomly?

It still seems hard to believe a party’s presidential nominee can lose a primary two years later, especially to a moron who ought to be in jail. But 1) McCain isn’t all that popular among AZ GOPers: he only got 51% in the ’08 primary at a time he really needed the boost; and 2) he’s running a campaign almost designed to anger anyone who fell for his 2000 shtik.

McCain and integrity go hand in hand. McCain has spent his entire life fighting for our Nation. His courage goes without saying, his experience and intelligent have always been clear. If you think otherwise, you have your head in the sand. You may not always agree with him, you may think a statement was silly, but no matter what I have learned from reading a listening, this guy has more integrity then most men could ever have. McCain is by far our best choice!!